Monday, September 25, 2006

my blog has been calling me...and Im ignoring it.
I just need to take a few minutes but there's always something more important to do.
but, a quick update today just to get back in the swing-

Old Navy -
Have you been there lately? They seem to be changing their mix a little bit.
I was there on Friday and noticed that they seem to be carrying more normal sizes- not just the tiny ultra low rise jeans. They actually have clothes for people who have a body!
I stocked up on my favorite tee shirts- on sale now, the womens perfect fit Tee.
These tee's are wonderful!
very heavy weight quality that wont stretch out and wont shrink.
They make them just a bit longer but fit in the waist.
I LOVE them and guess what?
On sale now for $5.00 each for the short sleeved ones.
I stalked uphttp://www.oldnavy.com/browse/category.do?cid=16171

scrapped a lot this weekend-
this weekend! yippee.
Completed a few projects that were sucking up all of my creative jucies so now I can move on to the good stuff. I've got some pictures that are calling my name and I've refused to start in on them until I completed the stuff I'd started. I hate half finished layouts. I know myself well enough to know I wont go back to it once I put it away

down the garden path-last summer Paul started a brick boarder along the side of the house where my un-used vege garden is. Its been half way done since last summer and its on our to-do around the house list. This past weekend I got out the shovel and and while Paul was sprucing up the yard, trimming the trees and mowing the lawn, I laid the rest of the bricks. Im pretty proud of myself cause it looks really nice now. Next weekend we're going to get some gravel and re-gravel the path.
Another thing checked off the to-do list. I love it when that happens :-)

Ethan news-
we got to baby sit Ethan yesterday. :-)
Man do 18 month olds have a lot of energy!!!!
My house is no longer child proof so theres no time to sit still when he's around.
Got some seriously adorable pictures though :-)

So there's an update.
Not much of one
but a start.
I did it.
and it didn't hurt a bit :-)

Sunday, September 17, 2006

Yesterday we spend the day with family at my brothers house...BBQ, cake, laughter and a little bit of a touch football game. A little bit cool and a little bit sunny... fall in the northwest is a beautiful season.
They have a few acres out in the country, a truely beautiful place with fruit trees, tall cedars and giant ferns. This is the lower part of their back yard. The sun was filtering through the trees and it just looked magical.
I was pretty impressed with myself for catching Koral with both of her feet off the ground!

One of the reasons they wanted a few acres out in the country is that they have three big dogs...
this is Ava. She is a sweetheart, but stay back from the drool! she had a cute bow in her hair yesterday:-)
And this is Bob the cat....what you dont see here is that he had a grasshopper pinned under his paws. :-)Here's one of my brothers and my two sister in laws....love spending time with them, especially when it involves a BBQ and chocolate cake!

Saturday, September 09, 2006

The fair marks the end of the summer around here. We love going to the fair and summer's not complete until we go. Hot scones and coffee start the morning as we map out what we want to see... Don't ya hate it when people take your picture when your eating? Paul does. Ha!Then its on to the dairy cows. Aren't they beautiful.? I vow to become a vegetarian every time I see how pretty and timid cows are.
Then there are the sheep...

And the draft horses...man, these guys are HUGE!

Well, thats it for the animal barns...
Next time, fair food! YUMMY!!!!

Thursday, September 07, 2006

For being a short week, this past week has been a struggle.
Lots going on at work so that means lots of work to shove into a shortened week....I hate that. Im a zombie at the end of each day and toss and turn all night still thinking about work.

But I was finally able to squeeze in a little bit of scrapbooking to take my mind off work so I'll share that for lack of anything better today. I've been ignoring my poor blog all week.
This is one of the pictures from our recent trip to the beach. Kind of wanted to give this layout a grungy feel.
Im also working on a mini album of the trip...really fun project. I love making mini albums. Hopefully I'll be done with that this week so I'll post it this weekend.

And Im going to vist my daughter this weekend so I made her this cookbook out of a recipe holder from the Target $1 spot

Monday, September 04, 2006

The end of a 4 day weekend and I had to go and ruin it.
how? my back.
I tried to dig up one small little area in my yard today.
I shoveled and raked and picked up rocks and raked again.
It took about and hour and a half to pull a muscle in my lower back.
god I hate getting old.
So my pile of stone bricks will have to wait til another day.
sheesh...

but other than that this weekend could not been any nicer.
nothing special.
Just our normal house
just the way I like it.
I love hanging out at home.
Its quiet
Its comfortable (except for my back...ack)
Paul watching golf on tv or surfing the internet
The dogs sleeping on their bed
Me cooking, scrapping or reading.
A pot of coffee.
the windows are open and the air is cool.
Perfection.
The end to a 4 day weekend

Friday, September 01, 2006

One benefit to buying the canon Rebel XT is that its very much like my Canon A80. All of the settings are exactly the same so the learning curve there was shorter. But...since I didn't understand many of the manual settings in my A80, I didn't understand them in my D Rebel either.But today I spent much time with two books, my manual and Understanding Exposure.Its starting to make sense. I think Im starting to get it.these are some of my first shots from today . Just walking around the house finding things that will let me take their picture..Not perfect, but I'll get there.

friends, near and far

The art of being happy lies in the power of extracting happiness from common things.

On being happy

"For most of life, nothing wonderful happens. If you don't enjoy getting up and working and finishing your work and sitting down to a meal with family or friends, then the chances are that you're not going to be very happy. If someone bases his happiness or unhappiness on major events like a great new job, huge amounts of money, a flawlessly happy marriage or a trip to Paris, that person isn't going to be happy much of the time. If, on the other hand, happiness depends on a good breakfast, flowers in the yard, a drink or a nap, then we are more likely to live with quite a bit of happiness."~Andy Rooney